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 ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS head or shoulder, and were probably placed in the grave to contain food or drink for the dead, 8 though they may also represent the cinerary urns of the pagan period. One skeleton was found without the skull, and the upper part of another was wanting. This may be due to subsequent disturbance (and there seems to have been much rubbish buried on this site), but such occurrences are not uncommon, 9 and may be due to the fortune of war, stray skulls being included in several graves at Mitcham, Surrey. Nor are flexed skeletons peculiar to this cemetery ; slight contraction of the lower limbs was noticed in five cases ; but such was the general rule in the extensive cemetery at Slea- ford, Lines., and many casual instances are recorded 10 both in England and across the Channel. Bronze was comparatively scarce, but besides the objects already mentioned was a ring-brooch from a child's grave, which also contained beads and a coin of Constantine (struck in 327) pierced for use as a pendant. A pair of tweezers was found with another skeleton, the customary knife in this instance being still in its sheath ; one cinerary urn contained an engraved spindle-whorl made of deer-horn, and inside another, with cremated bones, were several beads and part of a thin bronze disc, which was doubtless the base of a brooch of the ' applied ' variety, the position of the pin-head and catch being distinguishable on one side. The type is practically confined to England, a late Roman specimen from Sigy, near Neufchatel (Seine- inferieure), 11 giving some clue to its origin : the principal site is the ceme- tery at Kempston, Beds., but all were there found in association with skeletons. 12 It is noteworthy that the same cemetery produced a trefoil- headed brooch almost identical with that from Stapenhill, and what seems to be the prototype of the equal-armed brooch here illustrated (fig. i). The latter closely resembles one from Cambridgeshire, but the type is rare in England, and only a few specimens are known abroad. This equal-armed brooch differs widely from that found in southern France, and probably reached England and southern Scandinavia from the neigh- bourhood of Hanover, where elaborate examples of earlier date are comparatively common. And it is remarkable that the fifth-century specimens in England outnumber those of the sixth, which are plain and common-place as that from Stapenhill. The evolution of this type has been briefly indicated by Dr. Bernhard Salin, who illustrates the specimens mentioned above. 133 Both at Stapenhill and Kempston were found coins of the Constantine period, pierced for suspension, and tubular ' beads ' of bronze. Further, the cinerary urns and accessory vessels are of the same types, and both cemeteries contained cremations as well as inhumations. Partial cremation was also 8 Pottery vessels were included in coffins of the Middle Ages: Arch, xxxvii, 417. pp. xxxiii, xxxvi, 321) ; Mitcham, Surrey (Arch. Ix, 53, 57). 10 Sleaford, Arch. 1, 385 ; other instances in E. Yorks. ; Kempston, Beds. ; Marston St. Lawrence, Northants ; Leagrave, Beds. Cf. Cochet, Normandie Souterraine (ed. 2), 218. 11 Proc. Soc. Antij. Land. (Ser. l), iv, 237. 11 V.C.H. Beds, i, 180 (figs, n and 13 on plate) ; other brooches referred to are fig. 2 on plate, and ' engraved bronze brooch ' on p. 1 79. u * Die A Itgermaniiche Thlenrnamentik, 74, figs. 1 74, 1 76, 699, &c. 203
 * White Horse Hill, Berks. (Crania Britannica, pt. ii) ; E. Yorkshire (Mortimer, Thirty Tears' Researches,